Monthly Archives: November 2012

Creative Dragon flies into Walkervale

Waking before the crack of dawn to squeeze in an early morning writing class before school every Monday resulted in a special reward for seven dedicated Walkervale students in late November.

Cherie Curtis (front) with the enthusiastic Walkervale Writers and their teacher Lee Peno at a guest workshop at Walkervale State School in November.Kids Get Published members (aka the Walkervale Writers) were delighted to meet and participate in an advanced “Show, Not Tell” workshop with local author Cherie Curtis (aka Cheryse Durrant) at the school’s Innovation Centre on November 19.

“Group coordinators Lee Peno and Alexandra Irwin told me these seven children had been extremely dedicated to their writing all year and never missed a class. This workshop was to reward them for their efforts – and I was delighted to discover they were not only talented but extremely polite,” Cherie said.

During the workshop, students discovered the major differences between showing and telling, and how to improve their writing using a set of 12 important tips. They also brainstormed on the whiteboard to turn a boring “telling” scene into a vibrant piece of “showing”.

This is not the first time the Walkervale Writers have been treated to a workshop by a professional writer in 2012. Author/illustrator Dr Cameron Stelzer visited stuWalkervale Writers' Write Night Collection of Storiesdents earlier this year. The stories they wrote from this visit were later printed in the school’s souvenir Write Night Collection of Stories book.

Walkervale Writers presented Cherie with a copy of their story book and a box of chocolates at the end of the workshop. “It was lovely meeting these talented students and I’m looking forward to hearing updates on their writing in the future,” Cherie said.

Dragons strut their stuff at final 2012 class

Dr Who and Martha escape the raging fires of the Creative Dragons' fertile imaginations.Exuberance mingled with melancholy as our Junior and Senior Dragons traipsed across the carpeted floor of the Bundaberg Library for their final writing class of 2012.

For the past few months, we have stepped into the fascinating personas of fictional heroes and heroines – we have harboured Chosen Ones, grappled with unwanted gifts, fought off demons, sobered drunk relatives and dated Boy Bands.

We fastened our seatbelts as our spaceships destroyed empires, our young bodies took bullets and we lay listless in hospital, enabling us to add introspection to our plight 🙂

Cherie and the two LachlansWe learnt how to describe our senses and how to show not tell, and we discovered the wickedly slippery interrobang while crash-coursing into punctuation (I’m not sure how “wickedly” slipped in there when we know not to use “ly” adverbs).

Three-dimensional daleks rocked our meeting room with “Exterminate“, birthday cake left no crumbs at all (absolutely not on the floor) and we discovered that not all Freddo Frogs arrive perfectly formed.

Ash and CherWe analysed the importance of false teeth and lasagne. We screamed, cried and shapeshifted – we even had tissues for those days when we laughed or cried too hard (and Ysa never led the laughter fray).

But most of all (and of course we never start a sentence with “but”), we crafted solid friendships with other young writers who will be there for us throughout the good and the bad of future rough (and polished?) drafts.

Creative Dragons Junior Class - just the girls :)As your 2012 teacher, I thoroughly enjoyed this creative and joyful term. I feel honoured to have shared your dreams and writing (and laughter) with you and I’m looking forward to 2013 filling the Bundaberg Library with lots more fun and laughter – just don’t tell the librarians! After all… Shhsh! We’re meant to be quiet in there! Cherie 🙂